Nancy Rairs's Effects Of Multiple Sclerosis By Nancy Mairs

Multiple sclerosis has conquered the lives of many of its victims, one of which includes Nancy Mairs. However, Mairs writes an essay describing her experience with the disease and how it has not affected her negatively, as society assumes about the disease’s effects. Mairs does not write her essay to make her audience feel pity for her disease, yet writes to allow people to be more accepting of the disease and of people that have it. She incorporates the word “cripple” to describe the strength MS gave her, rather than politically correct or polite words such as “handicapped” or “disabled.” Mairs asserts that she is a resilient “cripple” through her use of diction, syntax, and rhetorical appeals in order for the reader to understand the full
Mairs makes this emphasis and confidence in her character by distinguishing between short and long sentences. The majority of sentences Mairs incorporates in her passage are short to create the emphasis of what her condition is, how the condition has affected the way she describes herself, and how people should not be pitying the affected patients of the disease, such as herself. For example, in her first paragraph, the first two sentences are short consisting of words not exceeding ten. These definite sentences where she states “I am a cripple. I choose this word to name me.” establish an initial bluntness in tone that makes people want to read on to understand why she has chosen this politically incorrect term to describe her. Throughout the rest of this paragraph, Mairs writes lengthier sentences, causing the audience to be more understanding behind what went on in her brain when making the decision of choosing this specific term to describe her. However, Mairs does not keep this lengthiness going on for long, as she uses the same strategy with her abrupt specificity in diction after thoughtful words, by finishing off the paragraph and the following paragraph with short sentences that finalize her thoughts about the idea of using the term to describe her condition. The first paragraph ends off with a five word sentence stating “As a
As mentioned before, the specificity of Mairs’ wording creates a solemn tone that the audience can agree or disagree on. If Mairs just states that she chooses the word “cripple” to describe her rather than the words “handicapped” or “disabled,” readers may not find her argument very convincing. Through her appeal to ethos, Mairs verifies thats he is trustworthy enough to hear her information about the differences between hat the three words mean to a person. Mairs’ reference to the word, cripple’s, “honorable history” in the second paragraph, proves to the reader that she has done some research on the definition of the word and has ensured that what she is proving about the word to describe her is legitimate evidence. Mairs goes on to write that the word “cripple” has “made its first appearance in the Lindisfarne Gospel in the tenth century,” validating that she has done some thorough research on how the word cripple came to be used. This reference makes the reader identify the author of this passage as well-rounded and educated with enough knowledge to possess an argument that can be well evaluated and supported. Finally, Mairs assures that the reader can again trust her knowledge by referencing George Orwell’s thesis that “‘the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts’” to prove